


Young Justice: Horizon

by hmmaster



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: But the focus is primarily on the Season 2 Freshmen, Features Basically Everyone, Multi, Plus New Characters like Starfire, Season Three Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-09 00:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hmmaster/pseuds/hmmaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The point of no return has come. Who can stand against those who would force the world into submission? Who can find the courage in themselves to bring the light to the dark? Who can stem the tide of destruction and renewal before it's too late? It's time to retaliate, before the sun sets over the horizon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Test

  
**ZANDIA  
** **OCTOBER 2, 21:16 EET**  


The small motion of his fingers sent the entire squad forward, moving like a cohesive unit into the small office, hiding from the men scouring the halls for the intruders. He stopped to marvel at how fast they had managed to screw up the mission and get everyone in harm's way. It was his fault, and he knew it, but as field leader, he had to keep everyone in line. Batgirl would have his head mounted on the Watchtower, overlooking everyone on Earth if he ever messed up this badly again.

For the longest moment, the only sound he could hear was the sound of his shallow breathing and the light buzzing of the green bee on his shoulder, a tiny insect wearing a red and white collar. Cassie crouched by his side, and he ached to hold her hand to calm his nerves. With his best friend and his girlfriend near his side, he had to believe that he would come through in the clutch.

He wanted to sigh, but the loud breath would have been too much. Radio signals were down, Miss Martian not on the mission. Somewhere in the depths of the underground base, Static was unconscious or worse... Robin didn't even know if he was alive anymore, and he wanted to scream at the top of his lungs just to get the anger out.

"Um, Robin, I could always do a swee-"

Tim shot Bart a cold glance to shut him up, and in good time too. Footsteps passed closely by the door, and Tim knew that the armed soldiers could shoot through even the solid concrete pillar Bart was hidden behind if they knew he was there. There had to be some kind of alien tech influence, and even though it bypassed the parameters of the mission, they needed to get their hands on that technology.

When it was clear that the danger was passed, Tim looked at all of them. "Kid, as fast as you are, you're not invisible," Robin explained to Kid Flash, donned in black and red stealth gear, a permanent fixture even when not on stealthy missions.

"I could slip through the walls."

Robin shook his head. "No, it's too risky. Your vibration makes too much noise. Even as fast as you are, you'll still attract attention and hamper our exit when the alarms go off again."

The green bumblebee buzzed around Robin's head, before shifting into his ape-like humanoid form and touching down. "Guys, I can get past the guards and the motion sensors a lot faster than you think, and do it in style."

Tim cracked a smile, but part of him wanted to say no. There was too much at stake with this mission, and if they handled it the wrong way, an entire country would fall under the control of cultist terrorists, the Blood. Could Beast Boy get back through the area undetected, get to Static, and get out of there if need be?

"Gar, you sure you can handle that?" asked Cassie, speaking for Tim before he could even put his careful thoughts to words. "Virgil's in trouble, we have to go back for him. But can we risk you getting captured as well, with no way to know if you're in trouble or not?"

Gar frowned. "Yeah, I can handle it. Why do you guys think I can't? They won't even know what hit 'em. Besides, if I do it fast enough, we can get back in time for the wedding!"

"We're not trying to hit them," Robin said, making Beast Boy's expression sour. This was not the time to be wondering about Raquel's wedding. "We're trying to get Static out of harm's way and decide the next move."

There was a long silence, and Robin could not tell what they were thinking. He was probably being harsh, but this was too dangerous. Too risky. They were unable to call in help from the Watchtower. Robin wondered frequently if the entire squad was in over its head; it was his fault that Static had been knocked unconscious, and it was his fault that they still had not rescued the Queen and taken a weapon for themselves for analysis.

"I'll go."

They all twisted towards him, and Tim tried very, very hard not to look at Cassie's concerned face.

"I've been trained by the Batman. And Nightwing. And Batgirl. If anyone's got the stealth in check, it's me. I can avoid the motion sensors and maybe bypass them if I need to."

"It's too dangerous, Robin! Batman or not, at least I can shift into something small and get out of there."

"We'll both go," Robin answered after a long moment of consideration. "You shift into something small and hold onto me, and we'll move. Cassie and Bart, stay here until we get back."

"How do we even know you'll get back?" asked Cassie, her expression filled with concern. His heart dropped in his chest, but he pushed the worry out of his mind.

"Hey, we're good, you guys. We'll get Virgil and then the rest of us will save the Lady," Beast Boy said charismatically, before shifting into a tiny green salamander and climbing up Tim's leg, settling into a fold of Robin's cape near the back of his neck.

"Be careful." Cassie clasped her hands together tightly, as though to hold onto something. Her armored bracelets glinted in the dim light of the room.

Tim nodded slightly, before moving swiftly through the underground passageway, blending into the shadows instinctively and heading back the way they had come.

Too much was riding on their success. If they didn't manage to succeed, then the entire plan would fail. Zandia was already crime-filled enough, but if they let the entire country fall into the hands of someone criminal, then all of Europe could be in trouble.

* * *

_Electricity coursed through his system, extending from their machine probes directly into his bloodstream._

_He didn't feel them at first, a slightly numbing feeling spreading through his body, but it almost felt pleasant in a weird sense. The only discomfort was from the needles sticking into his shoulders, his chest, his stomach, his back, his spine._

_But in seconds, the intensity spread to such a degree that it started to scramble his mind with pain, flashes of memory coming without warning. His friend Richie's fallen face... his mother's funeral... Flashes of color that made no sense, sounds that he never wanted to hear again. All in a matter of seconds, spreading through his body as he screamed incoherently._

_The unnatural scientists and their incessant clicking, like snapping claws. The high-pitched sounds surely could only have come from Hell._

His eyes opened wide, and his first instinct was to shout at the top of his lungs. An involuntary shock spread through his arm, collecting around his hand, before going away an instant longer. He couldn't feel the usual control over his powers in the back of his mind, and that worried him more than anything else. The electricity had not hurt, but it did not feel in control.

The dark room, a room that reminded him too much of the bowels of the Reach ship, was filled with black-robed men carrying glowing yellow weapons. They had all turned to him, and he was wrapped tightly with metal chains, his hands tied together behind his back, not even his fingers able to move. His feet were tied to the chair, and two of the robed soldiers were standing watch over him on either side. He could feel the bruise settling in on his face, a nasty burn brewing on his side that clung to his uniform with the faint stench of blood.

He scoured the rest of the room, his mind still a little delirious from being knocked unconscious. He was lucky to even be alive. There was no sign of their mission goal; the ruler of the country, Lady Zand, was nowhere in sight, and they had to save her before Zandia fell into the hands of the Blood.

"So, he awakens," a man began, an ornate black and yellow cloak covering his body, a hood obscuring his angular face. The voice was deep and scratchy.

"Yeah, Palpatine, I'm awake," Static shot back, rolling his eyes weakly. He struggled against his bindings, trying to call on his powers but nothing happened but a tiny shock hitting in the floor.

The man laughed. "Ah, you seem to be truly settling in as a little 'superhero.' The sass is utterly cliché, Virgil. I thought you were better than that."

Static didn't reply initially. "Because clearly the scratchy voice and the dark robes aren't cliché enough for you, generic villain of the week."

"I assure you that I am much more than a generic villain, but perhaps that is all up to interpretation. But alas, I don't particularly care what you think," he explained, walking toward Static and leaning over him threateningly. "Why don't you tell me why you and your pals think you are any match for me or my forces?"

"Because we've been trained by the best," Static threatened, trying to look menacing as he focused on the control deep in his brain. It never came, and he wanted to scream again.

"The best? I would hardly consider Black Lightning 'the best'," the man continued, turning away from him and pacing back and forth, his hands clasped tightly around his back. "Or maybe you were referring to your colleagues with more experience. You are the newest, and therefore weakest, link, correct?"

"Weakest my ass," Static shot back, although he was starting to wonder if that was true. Any of the squad could probably escape in multiple different ways, and Virgil couldn't even manage to unleash a single spark of his own volition. Cassie's strength, Gar's animal forms, Bart's vibration, and Robin's gadgets. Nothing that he could do would make a difference, and he was starting to wonder if the Blood would kill him before the end of the day.

"I appreciate the tenacity, Static, but save it for when you aren't about to die like your friend Richie." The cult's leader stood over him and raised his arm, the robe's sleeve falling away to reveal a high-tech gauntlet covered with ornate yellow and black designs, the top swirling with golden energy. He splayed his fingers, his palm shining brightly, and Static prayed for salvation.

But a realization hit him. "Richie? How do you know that name?" After a few seconds, he reached the connection. "You revealed yourself and your intentions too quickly, Brother Blood. Aqualad was right; you're one of the Light now. They must have given you data from the Reach and their experiments on unlocking the metagene. That's why you knew Richie and I became close while stuck there."

The man smiled, deactivating his weaponized arm. "You're smarter than I imagined. An analytical mind behind all the sass. I assure you that I am not on the upper echelons of the Enlightened, but I have high hopes."

He could feel the anger rising inside of him. "Why would you want to join them? They want to wipe out all of humanity!"

"Oh, dear boy. I can't speak for the intentions of all of its members, but the Light wish to take mankind to the next level. I intend to help them take that first step."

* * *

Cassie held her breath for one long, tense moment before standing so suddenly that Bart's head swiveled around fast enough to give him whiplash, if he wasn't so fast that he was probably immune.

"There's no way that we're sitting here doing nothing," she explained, opening the door before Bart could argue. "Come on, let's go."

"Where are we going, exactly?"

"To find Lady Zand," explained Wonder Girl, running ahead with Bart at her side. "This way we can save Virgil and complete the mission at the same time."

"You sure this is a good idea?"

"You know, for someone who used to be called 'Impulse' you aren't impulsive," Cassie said with a laugh, and Bart chuckled lightly. "Check the hallways we pass."

"We should probably take things slow," Bart explained. "Their tech is so not crash."

Bart was right about that. Part of the reason why they were so in over their heads was the fact that the Blood have very strange technology. The League doesn't think it's from off-world, but it's more advanced than a lot of what they've seen before. Scanners, plasma weapons, force field projectors... Those scanners were even able to locate Kid Flash, and their automatic defenses were more than enough to knock him down.

"We don't have time. You'll know better about how to react now, right? About how to avoid the motion sensors?"

Bart did not seem too sure, but he eventually nodded, speeding off to check adjacent hallways for any sign of the kidnapped queen. Lady Zand and her government were the only reason that Zandia had not fallen into complete criminal ruin, and now, the Blood were trying to overthrow them. Not "crash" at all, Cassie noted in her mind, continuing to speed down corners.

The speedster suddenly stopped in front of her, so fast that it made Cassie wonder how those with superspeed also had super-brakes. "No sign of her down this wing of the base, but I did find this."

The brunette pulled a jump drive from his pocket, the device yellow and black. "For a cult called the Blood, why do they take after Bumblebee?"

Cassie smiled before heading down another corridor, hoping to find some kind of central location where Lady Zand was most likely to be held. Bart followed closely, pocketing the jump drive.

"We'll have to check that later," explained Cassie. "Although we have to be careful; remember what happened with you and Blue back in March?"

She was referring to Blue Beetle and then Impulse bringing an alien tracking device into the cave, and that had led to the entire place getting blown up. Cassie was still sad about that, but Bart had more to feel angry about than her. That whole plan was still stupid and it made him cringe, even after all this time.

"Yeah, yeah, we'll probably need to use a laptop unconnected to any League networks to analyze it," said Bart as they turned another corner of the cavern-like base, but after a certain realization, Bart stopped, surprisingly Cassie.

"Uh, Wonder Girl... don't you think it's odd that we haven't seen anyone?"

Her eyes widened with realization, and in one fluid motion, she leaped off of the ground, avoiding the yellow energy lance that would have cut her in two. She flipped through the air, defying gravity and avoiding plasma blasts unlike any they had ever seen before. They were far more focused and bullet-like, and with her enhanced reflexes, she managed to deflect them with her silver gauntlets.

She couldn't focus on Kid Flash, surveying the area and deciding what to do. The enemies had somehow cloaked themselves, their robes giving off an ethereal glow that obscured them from sight and disguised them with holograms. It was advanced enough that it was nearly as good as a glamour from Zatanna, and that was saying something.

There were six of them, more than enough to cause trouble for either of them as long as they could keep Bart and Cassie away from them at a distance. Cassie, thinking as fast as she could, hurled herself through the air and launched at a stony pillar with a one-two punch, breaking off a large chunk and hurling it at the enemies with her full strength. The ceiling shook as they blasted it out of the air, superheated plasma bolts hitting the stone roof five feet above Wonder Girl's head.

Cassie moved out of the way fast enough to evade the pieces breaking apart and falling to the cavern floor, now unsupported in this area by the column of solid rock she had destroyed. The robed men were still firing at her, and she deflected another energy blast before realizing that her bracelets were starting to get far too warm for comfort. It was nearly painful, and she knew that if a normal person had been wearing them, they might have had severe burns.

She looked down, surprised to see that Bart had been tripped somehow and was lying unconscious against a wall, three other opponents scattered around him on the ground. The other cult followers angrily aimed down at him.

"No!" she shouted, diving at them as fast as she could, fist first. The satisfying crunch of a bone-shattering collision was met with brief elation, elation that made her angry and unsettled.

She twisted through the air, her leg spinning and smacking into the arm of another follower of the Blood. His torso collided with the cave wall, cracks spreading for ten feet all around it. His weapon seemed to smoke and steam before dimming, and Cassie reacted only quick enough to shield Bart with her own back.

The weapon exploded, yellow energy spreading throughout the hall with enough force that the entire cavern corridor collapsed. Cassie could only hope that her body would be enough to protect Bart, before her mind left her.

* * *

It was a very strange thing to explain if it came up in conversation. Seeing through the eyes of different animals was both the greatest and the most confusing thing about his life. Trying to describe the sensation of different senses of hearing, different sense of smell, different sense of taste was almost... magical, in a sense.

He knew that only J'onn and M'gann could really know the sensation of being a salamander. A cheetah. A peregrine falcon. He clung to the back of Tim's uniform, holding onto the cape and peeking out, wishing that he and Robin were mind-linked so that he could share advice about how to pass through the dim hallways. Although, he doubted Tim really needed the information anyway.

The room was dark, but something smelled off. Something he had smelled before, and although it was slightly different as a salamander, it was enough that he noticed that it was the same. And it was not a good sign.

He was nearly going to shift into a larger animal and follow his nose, but Tim stopped suddenly, and in one fluid motion, his bo staff collided with the jaw of a cultist that had somehow cloaked himself among the shadows.

Beast Boy wanted to see if he could smell any others, but Robin suddenly ran at the rock wall, taking three perpendicular steps and then pushing off, evading the yellow plasma energy bolt that left a char mark in the rock. Tim landed behind the cloaked figure, kneeing the man in the center of the spine with all his might, and then doing a full leg sweep to incapacitate them.

"Hold on, BB," Batman's protégé said as he ran full sprint through the hallways, dodging plasma bolts from more cultists appearing out of nowhere. "This whole thing was a trap somehow."

A trap? Gar considered it. If it was a trap, it was an elaborate one. They must have sent cloaked cultists into the hallways to intercept them after Virgil was kidnapped. But was Robin referring to more than that? Was the plot to kidnap Lady Zand an elaborate trap to get the League involved?

Gar shook his amphibious head lightly, refusing to let that skeptical thought fill his head. Not everything has to be some elaborate conspiracy built by the Light; maybe Batgirl and Aqualad were wrong about the Blood? It wouldn't be the first time that the Team had faulty information related to the Light's plan.

Tim continued to run through the halls, and Gar was starting to get more and more worried. The older boy was far too loud for a stealth mission, but he was running from the Blood to the best of his ability. Gar did not feel like he could do much of anything at this point, so he stayed hidden until the right moment arose. His powers wouldn't exactly help him long-range, and Tim had far more training on that front than he did. He had to trust that Robin would be able to handle it, and that pained him that he couldn't help at the moment.

Tim suddenly changed directions down a side hall, moving so quickly that he might have given Bart a surprise run for his money. Sort of. He slipped into the shadows even farther, hiding behind a wall of rock to his left where the light barely touched the wall and sighed lightly, and Gar got ready.

"Gotta breathe," he whispered so lightly that Beast Boy nearly didn't hear it. "Where do I go from here?"

Gar thought it was strange that Robin was asking him. Robin of all people couldn't remember where to go? It was then that he noticed the dark circles under Tim's eyes, dark enough that the stretched just below the mask. It made the bird's entire face look gaunt and unsettled, like he had been working himself to death. Beast Boy had no idea why the other boy would feel that way; most of the missions had been tame compared to the Invasion. Was something back in Gotham messing with Tim's head, influencing his decisions and ability to function on missions?

Gar thought about the path they had traveled and where they had lost Virgil, and it actually was not that much farther from here. But it required going back the way they had come, and there were several cultists heading down that way. They probably only had seconds before they recovered and found them.

Suddenly, the sound of explosion and its force rocked the cavern, and Gar was terrified as to what that meant. He figured that Cassie and Bart were safe, but he was suddenly terrified for Static.

"It sounded far away," Robin whispered. "Probably on the other side. Static couldn't have been hurt by it." The unanswered question as to who or what it could be was interrupted by the sound of the alarms blaring, and both of the Team members realized that it was just too complicated not to rush into save him.

Beast Boy leaped off of the boy's shoulder, choosing the form of a hound. He sniffed the ground and then turned back into his hybrid form. "He's close. Static always smells like barbecue and hair."

Somehow, Tim laughed. "It's probably because of all the electricity messing with his hair spray."

Gar just smiled and transformed into a small monkey, gesturing toward the hallway before crawling behind Tim and hiding to get ready to strike.

They rounded the corner, trying to stick to the wall where the light didn't touch, but yellow light of the enemies' weapons betrayed them. Beast Boy snapped to attention, leaping as high and as fast as he could right into the face of one of the robed men, pulling at the high-tech scanner covering one eye and yanking it off, throwing it to the ground before clawing at the creature.

The cultist grabbed at his back and wrung its hands around his chest and abdomen painfully, knocking out the green shape-shifter's breath. He tried to concentrate on maintaining his animal shape, but eventually he lost it and shifted back into his hybrid form.

That had the side benefit of unlocking the cultist's grasp, and with another moment, he transformed into a Bengal tiger and snapped at the enemy with his claws. The enemy went down, and he spun into the next one.

His instincts tried to keep him focused on what was in front of him, but he tried to concentrate on Robin at the same time. The boy had brought out his bo staff, which meant serious business as far as Gar was concerned. The Boy Wonder aimed for weak points like the soft part of the neck and the ribs, and Gar wondered if it was really necessary to be that brutal.

He shoved into the next man with all the weight of a charging rhino, before shifting back and turning to his friend. "Robin! We've got to get to Static!"

The stealth specialist of the squad nodded, taking out two members of the Blood with one swing and then leaping high above the energy blast of the next. Gar moved in the next moment to incapacitate the next enemy, transforming into an antelope and slamming his front hoof into the Blood at top speed.

"Thanks," Robin said, before the two of them rushed down the hallway, ignoring the blaring alarm. They burst into the room, and Beast Boy realized it first.

Static was chained to a chair, blood matting his hair from a small cut above his left ear, and his uniform was in tatters. He was unconscious, but the room was otherwise empty. Gar made to move in, but Tim threw out an arm. "Trap." Batman's sidekick snapped a pellet on the ground, smoke billowing throughout the room and nearly obscuring their vision. As it dissipated, he realized there were red lasers covering the entire room, like a complex and random grid surrounding them.

Gar realized his predicament. He couldn't shift because of the amount of space he had around him, so he couldn't communicate with Tim. Gar thought he could transform into a mosquito or a fruit fly and fly through the grid toward his unconscious friend, but when he got there, he wouldn't be able to get him out.

"The power source is in this room," Tim said aloud, trying to analyze all the details. Beast Boy wanted to know how he knew that. "Look at what's holding Static. Metal chains. Brother Blood probably wants Static to break free, like some kind of sick test. The laser grid is probably some other kind of test. We can't pick him up and get him out of there without turning off the grid, and chances are, they are rigged with explosives."

There was a loud buzzing noise before someone cleared his throat, over the loudspeaker.  _"Well, well, well. I've been corrected twice today. There are truly intelligent members of the League's team of younglings."_

"Brother Blood," Robin affirmed.

 _"Yes, it says so underneath my 'generic villain of the week' profile picture,"_  Blood jested.  _"Your unconscious friend taught me that one. I have to say, Virgil has truly mastered the art of sassing in the middle of battle. How do you fare on that front, little bird?"_

Gar could tell that Robin was getting extremely tired of this, and he wanted to shout that he was the funny one, but he cursed his rotten luck with being stuck as a monkey.

"Cut the crap, Blood. What do you want with Lady Zand? Where is she being held?"

 _"A no-nonsense kind of kid, huh? Well, I won't tell you any of those things. But if you can figure out how to save your friend, I'll consider letting Lady Zand live and keep her imprisoned here, to rule on the front-lines while I do what I do best without being hindered by the authorities. But if you lose, then Lady Zand will die. And then both Wonder Girl and Static will die, and you'll have to add to the memorials on your satellite. Consider it my final exam."_ The intercom shut off.

Gar couldn't believe it, realizing that the explosion they had heard earlier must have been related to Cassie and Bart. Where was Bart and why had he only mentioned Wonder Girl? Brother Blood was a twisted man.

The expression on Robin's face was one of anger and concern. Gar did not have a great idea of where his friend's mind was going, but he would figure this out. He had to.

* * *

Bart took several deep breaths, trying to imagine what that could have been like if it had ended worse. He had no wounds that were extremely dangerous, but he had been knocked out by the force of the explosion. He looked to his right, realizing that Cassie was unconscious. The dead bodies of the men were charred nearly to a crisp, but he'd seen worse in the future.

He tried not to think about it. He picked Cassie up, fixing her tattered shirt so that it wouldn't come apart and expose her, and put her on his back. He tried to hold her carefully so that she wouldn't fall off, before running literally anywhere else at a much lower speed than he normally wound.

His metabolism was running low; he must have been hurt more severely than he imagined, and his body had tried to heal itself quickly. There were no places he could see where his uniform had been damaged, but that didn't mean anything. It could have been a bad bruise or maybe a fractured bone.

"Cassie, what are you even made of?" he wondered aloud, knowing that she would have looked just as badly as those members of the Blood without her powers. It was so crash to him.

He zipped into the next hallway, trying to go a different route to find Lady Zand. He didn't meet any of the cultists, glad for the brief moment to collect himself and get the fogginess out of his head. He sped through each room, checking doors and vibrating his head through them to search for the queen of the country they were trying to save. He was having trouble trying to remember what was so interesting about Zandia that even brought it to Aqualad's attention, but he was sure that one of the others would remember.

The last room on the left was open, and as he moved past it, he tried to concentrate on the opening. The instant that he saw what was inside, his eyes widened. An extremely large suit of futuristic armor, styled in yellow and black, being worked on by the Blood's scientists and engineers. It looked like an exosuit, something akin to Blue Beetle's suit, and Bart wondered if this was all more Reach tech. Jaime wouldn't like the looks of this.

Someone stepped into view for a brief moment, and he recognized her immediately. Lady Zand was standing there, very much not captured and seemingly in charge of their operations. "So not crash..." he muttered under his breath, his mind running a mile a minute about the implications.

Either Lady Zand was being manipulated into working for Blood, or she was evil herself, or he just misunderstood the complications. Either way, this was most definitely not good.

One of the guards must have heard him, so he raced out of the way just as Cassie started to wake up. "Wh-what happened? Why is everything blurry?"

He stopped suddenly around the corner, putting her down so she could secure her bearings. "Sorry, had to get you out of there. We've got bad news. Are you good?"

She studied him for a moment and then smacked her fists together, nodding. Her shirt looked like it was nearly going to fall off at any moment, but she didn't seem to let it hinder her. Bart had to give her props there, but he couldn't help but feel awkward.

"I'm good. What's the bad news?"

Instantly, something exploded out of the wall nearby them, covering them with the rocky debris and smoke. The yellow and black robot that Kid Flash had seen was huge and glowing with energy around its palms, and it looked like it was covered with circuits and an impossibly strong alloy. It raised one arm and aimed at them.

"That's the bad news. Run!" Kid Flash sped out of the way and Wonder Girl took flight, just as the robot fired its weapon. Bart had been fast enough, but Cassie had to throw up her arm bracelets to defend herself against the powerful attack, a more concentrated blast of sonic energy.

"Is that all you got? I've faced this kind of stuff before!" She deflected the rest of it, avoiding the ringing in her ears, before diving at it out of the air with a fist raised. Her opponent did not move to block her, and her hand collided with it with all the power of a half-Amazon. Its metallic shielding dented inward, but not significantly, before it reached out with his powerful grip and threw her into the wall.

Kid Flash took Cassie's moment and ran at the large metallic behemoth, and it locked onto him and lifted him out of the air in the last possible instant, hands against his throat. He tried to keep a brave face and lifted both arms, wrapping around the gold and black arm. "I'll show you why I'm the fastest boy alive!" His hands vibrated so quickly that the metal couldn't keep up, and within a few short seconds, it shattered from the forearm down, leaving it in pieces on the ground.

Bart fell to the ground and tried to cover his throat, knowing it would take several more minutes to breathe.

"Did you really just make that corny a joke?" asked Cassie as she flew toward the monstrous machine, holding her lasso in hand.

"Yeah, yeah, I know I'm very original," Bart tried, shaking off the villain's attack. He felt guilt wash over him. "I take after my family!"

The moment that she managed to wrap around it, a surge of electricity left its armor and shocked her through the lasso, forcing her to drop her grip as she cried out in pain. It tossed the lasso away easily, before Kid Flash tried to kick it in the groin repeatedly, so many dozens of times in a few seconds that it would have left a huge mark on it.

A few hits made its mark, but it proved fast enough to move out with its own kick, slamming into him and sending him flying. Cassie caught him and set him down, before trying one more time to fly at the machine one more time.

She blocked a concentrated blast of energy from its remaining arm, diverting them and sending them refracting backwards, until there was a hole where the robot's left hip should be. "How'd you like that taste of your own medicine?"

She rushed it again, trying to get her hand on the edge of where it had been damaged and force a punch into the chink of its armor. It smacked her down to the ground with so much force in a single downward punch that she was sure she'd have a bruised rib, the rock cracking on the ground around her. Bart knew she hadn't fought anyone as physically tough as this since her fight with Mongol, and this guy was so varied with its skills that it reminded him too much of Black Beetle.

Bart realized that if they were going to win, they were going to have to whittle him down to nothing or get backup from Tim and the others. "Hey, big guy, over here!" Kid Flash taunted, trying to get its attention away from the girl in the center of the nigh-crater.

He thought about speeding around in a circle, but the guilt was too much to bear, so he tried a different approach. He spun his hands in a circle, directed at the machine. He did it so quickly that a tunnel of spinning air hit his opponent and sent it flying backwards. Cassie recovered quickly enough to leap into the air and send another kick to force it into the cavern wall, this time showing off her own strength and leaving cracks the in the earth.

"Wonder Girl, let's find the others!" Bart shouted, picking up the broken forearm he had removed from the monster.

"What about Lady Zand?" Cassie asked, flying over to join him. If they were going to get out of the way, they needed to move quickly. "We can't just leave without her."

"We have to," Bart said. "Our intel was wrong. I think she's working with them, and it was already a risk for us to come here. We'll be on the news for breaking a UN charter."

"Great," Cassie said, agreeing with him. "At least we got a sample of the kind of tech they are using. Let's go."

* * *

Robin took several deep breaths, trying to decide how he was going to do this. He had three lives on the line, and chances are, if he failed this perverse test, both of the conscious members of the Team in the room would lose their lives too.

He had already created a blueprint of the room in his mind, imagining it like a model that the Batcave's computers could easily make holographically. There were over one hundred of the laser lines from what he could tell, some of them with enough space to move in. He had to prove why he belonged with Batman and the Team now. Training from each of his mentors and each of the senior members of the Team ran through his mind, and he had to limber up.

The irony of his potential explosive demise was not lost on him, and he would never, ever do that to Bruce and Dick and Barbara. Never. He had already made that promise a  _long_  time ago, and he had no intention of breaking it.

_Just don't die, okay._

"Okay."

He dropped his cape to the floor, knowing that any sort of breeze could move the fabric into the path of a laser. He tried to plot his movements, and he realized that he had already watched Catwoman do this on a patrol a long time ago. He'd have to be even more flexible than Catwoman.

The second that he took the first step, he realized that it wouldn't be that hard. He took another, bending down and wishing that he was more of an acrobat like Dick. He moved once more, slithering his body like a snake.

"You can do this!" The voice of Gar shocked him, and he almost wanted to turn around to scream at him for shifting when he knew he couldn't, but the shape-shifter had found a place to shift where Tim had been standing before.

He jumped over a particularly smaller one, his body strong enough to do a complete flip forward and then a tuck'n'roll, and he managed to stop on a dime, fast enough that he felt his wrist pop out of place.

"Damn!" he shouted in pain, wincing but trying not to let the pain distract him. He had not failed yet, but he was only halfway to the place where he needed to be.

"You all right?"

"Not really," he muttered to his green friend, before slinking under a mid-height laser and guiding his body nearly horizontally through it, sliding his leg back to join his. He had to stop moving on a dime, realizing that he was literally a breath away from his nose touching the red line.

He took a deep, calming breath and then spiraled away from where he was, sliding his way through a small gap on the floor and managing to touch Static's chair.

The newest member of the Team was still unconscious, and Robin had already realized where the battery was that powered the defense grid. On the other side of the room, there was a small panel on the grid of computers lining the walls. He was almost certain that that was the right one, but now he had to figure out how to disable it.

Reaching into his utility belt, he found the Bird-A-Rang he was looking for, built with a very small localized EMP. It was so impractical to use though, because it had been untested so far. He had to hope that the prototype would work.

He tried to calculate the angles and the arc of how he needed to throw it, but just to freak him out, the buzzing of the intercom sounded throughout the room.

_"You have five seconds."_

He cursed at hearing that name and finally threw the projectile like a discus, hoping that it would get the right angle. The second that it collided with the panel, there was a cackle of electricity and the grid was disabled.

Beast Boy moved in the very next moment, rushing over and with all the strength of a gorilla, he ripped the chains holding Static and threw him over his shoulder.

 _"Good job, littlest bird,"_  the man said over the intercom.  _"I'm a man of my word, so it seems that the queen will live today."_

"What about Wonder Girl? Tell me where you're keeping them!"

Brother Blood just laughed.  _"Do you really think I would tell you where I'm keeping Zand? Because I am a man of honor, I will tell you that the Amazon has escaped my clutches and is heading toward your position right now with the temporally-displaced speedster. But how long can they survive?"_

Robin knew the mission parameters. "We need to find Lady Zand now, and if we're lucky, we'll get Brother Blood along the way."

The instant that they opened the door, they were greeted by both Wonder Girl and Kid Flash. Her shirt was torn and she had several burns along the back of her body, and Bart was holding some kind of black and yellow arm made of technology. "Good, he's safe!" Cassie shouted about Virgil, before pointing to behind them. "We need to get out of here now! Signal the Bioship!"

Robin did just that, poking the R on his chest to let the ship know that they needed back-up. "What about Zand?"

"I saw her up and moving around, and she sounded like she was in charge of the building," he pointed behind him just as something that looked like a yellow and black robot, very tall and bulky charged toward them, its remaining arm glowing with power and its hip missing. "But it doesn't matter! She's with them now, and that thing is going to kill us!"

Beast Boy shouted as though to say that they could fight it, and Robin did wonder if they had already injured it already, but just for a show of skill, the machine held up it missing hand and suddenly regenerated, re-growing a smaller version that wasn't covered in armor.

"Okay, we're getting out of here then!" Robin shouted, and the four of them ran through the hallway, Virgil still unconscious over the shoulder of Beast Boy's gorilla form.

Robin tried to mask their escape with smoke pellets and Cassie took out any cultists that stood in their way back toward the exit. Bart worked to try to stall it by running after it and knocking into is body, but it practically ignored him and tried to send sonic blasts after them, which Cassie moved to block.

As soon as they found their entrance, the Bioship arrived and aimed its cannons at the robot following them. They moved to jump into the ship, just as the red blast of energy collided with the robot.

Gar moved into the driver seat and immediately drove it away, and Robin moved to try to give Virgil some kind of medical attention on the floor of the ship. "Hey, at least we're going to make it to Raquel's wedding!" The shape-shifter looked like he was driving, but it was on autopilot.

"That's a plus. We need to head back to the Watchtower now," Robin declared, already dreading everyone's eventual look of disappointment at him. Cassie seemed able to read his mind as he tried to clean the cut above Static's eye.

Kid Flash showed him what they had collected; a yellow and black flash drive and the arm of the robot they had fled from. "It wasn't a total loss, at least. Any chance that we'll know what's going on from all this?"

"I don't know," Cassie explained. "I hope so though."

Gar seemed to notice what was going on. "Hey, I don't want that going anywhere near the Watchtower. We're not going to lose another home because of alien tech."

Tim remembered what had happened. "He's right. We'll keep it on the Bioship until Doctor Fate can move it to another dimensional space for safekeeping."

"That's what they do with all the dangerous stuff?" asked Bart. "That's so crash."

* * *

_"So the sidekicks struck again,"_  the bald man on the screen spoke, his usual sandy-blonde partner behind her.  _"They are getting bolder."_

Lady Zand nodded. "Yes. They have no part to play on my soil, and the League knows that. Why would they send their black-ops team here?"

 _"They could have simply been interested in your grand island, my lady,"_  the politician said.  _"It has a known history of associating with the criminal underground. They have been stagnant during the last few months, trying to find any vestige of the Light or lead in order to avenge their dear speedster. It was natural that they would look there eventually."_

Zand turned to Brother Blood, her chief adviser and the leader of the Church of Blood. "They are onto us, Blood. They know now what we are tampering with."

"How could they?" asked Blood, his expression coy. "There's no possibility that they could know about what we are mining here. It doesn't exist anywhere else. It's even named after you, my lady."

She nodded, but she wasn't sure. "They know now, however, that there's an unknown and highly radioactive element that we are using to power our projects. It won't take them long to retaliate."

Lex smiled from his limousine.  _"Don't worry. I'll see to it that there's enough political pressure on them to avoid even wanting to attack again. It'll give you time to complete the project and bring it to the world stage."_

* * *

**DAKOTA CITY  
OCTOBER 2ND, 16:23 CST**

The party was going on, and everyone was enjoying themselves. There were no missions and almost everyone from the Team and the League were there. A few of the senior members were gathered around, and their moods were a little more somber. This was one of the first huge events to happen since Wally's death, and everyone was honestly surprised that Artemis was there. She looked like she was going to break at any moment, despite trying to put on a happy face for the event.

All the couples were dancing, from Tim and Cassie to Conner and M'gann (although she didn't think they were a couple exactly. It was complicated). Karen and Mal were so good at it that it lit up the dance floor, sparking everyone to join in. Bart even dragged his best friend to join him, for "only the fast songs, Blue, I swear!", trying to lighten Jaime's mood. Raquel was glad to see both the Team and the League having fun, and even Bruce seemed content to dance with Diana which was nearly bizarre to her.

Raquel tried to spend less time thinking about work and more time thinking about her two year old and her husband, and enjoying her special day. The reception was filled with a lot of merriment from most of her friends and relatives, and most of her colleagues had already given their wedding gifts.

Victor came over to join her, and she grinned at how handsome he was in that suit, and how awesome he would look out of it. "May I have a dance?"

"Only if Amistad joins us," she said, knowing that she wanted to share the day with both of the most important men in her life. The man smiled back, so painfully in love with the woman in front of her.

They picked up the toddler, and Raquel held him on her hip while they danced. It was awkward and a little bit odd, partly because of the snot bubble nearly forming under Amistad's nose and covering her shoulder, but it was memorable nonetheless.

"I'm so glad to share this day, and the rest of my life, with you," Victor said, so drunk in the love of the moment. "Even if all your friends are nearly as weird as the android over there." He gestured to Red Tornado, disguised in his human form known as John Smith, who was so awkwardly standing there, looking at everything with distant wonder.

"Yeah, well, I'm sure he won't be the weirdest thing you'll see with me and the double life," she said, laughing. "Any chance you're ready to go? M'gann and Zatanna have already agreed to clean up and handle all the business here."

He smirked suggestively. "You sure?"

"Well, I figure we have about an hour before the next criminal mastermind tries to blow up city hall, so why not? Someone tried to rob a bank right in front of my bridal shower with a damn freeze gun, so I'm taking the chance now before I lose it."

Victor looked at her earnestly. "You'll never lose me, babe. Don't ever think that."

She honestly felt like she was about to cry, but she could never be sad, even if it was a happy sad, on her wedding day.

Within minutes, everything broke down into cheering and a mad dash to catch the bouquet. Raquel was not surprised when it landed in M'gann's arms, but she wondered if there had been a bit of a telekinetic push. Either way, Conner looked at her like she had grown a third head, and Gar was perhaps the most excited of anyone. Zatanna made Amistad wave to his mom and new dad, feeling so much to see her best friend move on to something new.

They drove down the road, cans slapping against the pavement, with the words, "Just Married!" written across the car's backglass in M'gann's elegant handwriting. Raquel almost couldn't believe the day had finally come, and she was proud to be known as Raquel Ervin Stone from then on.


	2. Falling Stars

 

 

**BLÜDHAVEN  
OCTOBER 5, 23:21 EDT**

The wind was starting to turn cold, making him partly uncomfortable on the rooftop of the Westside Hotel. He had been trying to clear his head, to give himself an open mind to new ideas and ruin old ones. Several of those channels had already been closed to him, but part of him wanted to dig out the old polar stealth uniform and look again with only his bare hands and an analytical perspective.

 _"The best way to clear your mind is to focus on your breathing,"_ Bruce had said, many years ago. Dick had tried it so many times, but he had felt wound-up like a ball of stress long before the Reach invasion.  _I'll probably never be relaxed again._

Lately, he'd focused on his patrols and not on the piles of books and research material he had gathered over the last few months. Crime never stopped in this part of the city, but this night had been different so far. He knew it wouldn't be long until the police picked up something, and then he'd be off.

Part of him wished that something  _would_  happen, just to end his boredom and anxious nerves. He hated that part of himself, the part of him that lived for the drama and the feeling of delivering pain toward those who delivered pain unto others. His oft broken knuckles were a reminder that he deserved to be punished for enjoying the fight against the enemies and all the injustice in the world.

_If only I could fight death itself. Then again, Cassie may have Thanatos on speed dial._

"Etativel reh dna em!" The sound of the billowing wind and the backwards wording made him smile, before he realized what this would be about. This conversation had been a long time coming, but Dick had been dreading it for the entire four months.

The sight of the two beautiful ladies, both dressed in uniform, was enough to at least make him focus on something else. For that, he should thank them. They touched down on the rooftop a few yards away from him, not sure if they should walk over to him or not.

He shrugged and let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding in, and they sat down on either side of him, looking over the city toward the coast. "I guess I already know what you're going to say."

"Well then you know why  _we're_  being rational, and why  _you're_  being irrational," Barbara said, running a hand through her red hair and stretching her entire body out along the edge of the roof, feet dangling. "Some part of you must realize that."

"Look, Dick," Zatanna began, looking over at Barbara for being so blunt. "What she means is that maybe it's time to give up."

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose. "Give up? He wouldn't give up on me. I can't do that to him... It's a disservice to his memory, at the very least."

"So you're just going to keep looking at the same files and pacing around the same leads until the day you die?" Batgirl asked. Her voice held a certain mixture of concern and outrage that Dick wished he knew how to imitate.

"No, I actually might have a new on-"

Zatanna traced her fingers through his. "He's gone, Dick."

"Exactly," Nightwing said, squeezing her fingers for emphasis before standing up and walking back several feet, gesturing around. "He's gone. But not dead." He wanted to run into an entire explanation as to why he thought so, but he had already run it through them before on a few occasions. The new lead, however, he was going to keep to himself. He needed the right opportunity to figure out how he was going to approach it.

Both of them sighed at the same moment, and it nearly made Dick feel guilty that he had made them so concerned.

"I'm not going through this conversation with you again," Batgirl said, looking him straight in the eye. He was glad for it; the last time he had tried to explain that Newtonian physics had somehow broken Wally that day had not gone over well. "But it's not healthy. It's been nearly five months, and it's become an obsession."

"Everyone's worried that you're going to turn into Roy, when he was looking for Arsenal," Zatanna explained. "You know that road very well, and it nearly happened the last time."

Dick knew what she was referring to, but he had already gone through all of this in his head. "I promise, I won't become that. I'm not the same person that I was after Jason died, and I'll never let myself become that way every again. You've got nothing to worry about."

Zatanna frowned. "I feel like you're just telling yourself that. You're letting this influence your personal life, Dick. You dropped out of college, and your job at the precinct is crumbling."

Dick grimaced at the thought of the look Alfred would give him the next time he saw him. And his job at the police station was barely more than freelance volunteer work, without a degree. "I don't need to a fancy paper to tell me what I need to know about criminal justice."

Zatanna pursed her lips. "You're not above people with degrees just because you fight crime. I've only got one semester left. Babs finished a long time ago. If something happens to us that inhibits our ability to fight crime, we'll have a day job to fall back on."

Dick frowned. "I'll just figure out a different way to help in the fight then."

Nightwing knew the look on Barbara's face. She was so inherently beautiful and so presently terrifying. "We're just dancing around the issue, Dick. You need to do  _something_  other than look for lost causes." Barbara frowned. "When you said you were going on a break, Kaldur and I knew you had stepped away from the Team to go down this path. We couldn't stop you from doing what you needed to, but  _now_  what you need is to come back. Or give up the life entirely."

Nightwing couldn't go through all of that again. Even if it was someone that he didn't know very well, on either the League or the Team, he couldn't do it again. "I can't do it. If someone else dies because of me, then I'll never forgive myself."

Barbara stepped closer, crossing her arms. "And just what do you think will happen if you aren't there to help? What if you running away from your duties to go on this pointless solo mission leads to someone's death? What if you neglecting the others is the exact reason that someone else is hurt!? What are you going to do then?"

He shook his head, backing away. "I don't know. But I have a lead, Babs. I think I have a solid lead, and I'm going to figure out what it means. Maybe after that, I'll come back."

Zatanna just turned away. "We aren't doing this to hurt you, Dick. We care about you. This isn't healthy for you, for anyone. The Team needs you."

"The Light's back," Barbara added bluntly. "We've been doing our own search for weeks, and we've actually broken ground. Chances are, this will be a big one if they have finally started acting out in the spotlight again. We've heard rumors and have seen some of the new stuff they are working on. The invitation is open if you want to fight back."

He looked back at them, but they were already gone. He sighed, wondering what would be the right thing to do. The few stars he could see beyond the light pollution were bright, and he took another deep breath.  _Wally's out there... I just have to find him._

* * *

 

 

**METROPOLIS  
OCTOBER 6, 13:34 EDT**

"I can't believe that you dragged me along for this," Conner said, carrying several bags of clothing. "Cassie, you know as well as I do that you can carry your own bags."

He looked at the two girls, both of them trying on new styles in the middle of one of the city's biggest and most expensive malls. They had already bought several outfits, but Conner couldn't stand the waiting for them to try them on. Cassie's frilly white lace shirt looked ridiculous on a girl he was used to seeing in battle armor, and he didn't know why M'gann liked to try on the physical clothes when she could just make her own.

"Yeah, I know I can," Cassie said cheerfully. "But you'll have to do since Tim's in school. You haven't complained about having to carry M'gann's bags, have you?" She raised an eyebrow suggestively, and he suddenly had the urge to groan.

"Why aren't you in school?" asked M'gann, cutting through the tension. "You're only a freshman this year, right?"

She smiled. "Yeah, I should actually be in eighth grade, considering how much school I've missed since figuring out all of the superheroics. But the school cut me some slack because my mom donates quite a percentage of her paycheck to the school. But we have a free day today."

Conner wanted to ask how a poor archaeologist had managed to afford private school, but he figured he wouldn't judge. "Are we nearly done in this store?"

M'gann clapped. "Almost, but I want to check out the shoes!"

"Can't we just skip that part?"

"Why are you complaining so much?" asked Cassie. "You should be glad to help your girlfriend."

"She's not my girlfriend," Conner said at the same time that M'gann said, "He's not my boyfriend." Cassie looked at them with suspicion but did not press the issue.

Conner refused to look at the redhead or the blonde, hoping that they wouldn't take long at the shoes. He felt the tiny twinge of a touch at his mind, and he let her in almost subconsciously. " _You aren't... upset about what Cassie said, are you?"_

He shook his head, wondering if she could even see him from the other side of the store.  _"No. I just don't want everyone to assume we're anything more than friends."_

_"Are we ever going to be more than friends again?"_

_"Maybe one day. I enjoy spending time with you, M'gann, as a friend. I've gained back my trust with you, I just don't know if I'm fully willing to go that far again."_

_He could feel her initial sadness with their empathy link. "That's understandable. Probably smart even. I like us being friends too."_

_"Did you have to lay it on so thick during the wedding though?"_ Conner asked with a mental and physical laugh.

She blushed.  _"Yeah. Sorry about that."_

"Are you guys really having a mental conversation again?" Cassie groaned, loud enough that he could hear it with his super-hearing. "Don't you know how annoying it is to feel left out? 'Course, you're probably talking about your feelings, so I don't want to pry. Sorry."

"Yes, we know all about it," Conner said, joining them and carrying their bags with ease. "No need to apologize. I need to go and use the restroom." He placed his bags on the ground beside Cassie, who groaned at the possibility of having to carry them all herself if they left the store while he was gone.

Conner just smirked, heading into the bathroom to clear his head. He didn't actually have to use it, he just wanted to control himself and stop thinking about everything that was going on between the two of them.

It was such new and treacherous territory, and it had been for a long time. They had grown closer, especially after Wally, but it had never quite gone there on either account. M'gann was more hopeful, but Conner couldn't do it.

He washed his face, imagining the face of someone who looked twenty-one in his place. It took him quite a bit of time to actually notice that he wasn't aging like the others, and Dick was a prime example of that. That kid had shot up to shoot over his height, his face maturing into something interesting. He had watched the microscopic lines grow on Artemis's face, had watched M'gann cover up her own with her powers. She had done so much for him to make his non-aging appearance be normal, and he couldn't imagine having to face that pitfall with anyone else.

He'd often asked himself that if there were a way to make him age on the outside, would he take it? Ma and Pa Kent were so happy and wonderful together, despite their age. Conner would never have to look older than sixteen, but he wanted to know what it would be like to see himself as sixty. Maybe if Clark lived to be sixty, he'd know. But it still bugged him now and again, that he would never be normal.

A loud boom hit his eardrums, and every instinct shot into alarm. Was that heard by everyone, or just by his ears?

_"M'gann?"_

_"We're on our way outside to figure it out!"_

_"Yeah, I'm itching for a fight!"_

_"Don't be overeager, Cassie!"_ Conner tried to say, running out of the restroom and pulling off the jacket covering his favorite shirt. M'gann and Cassie had already left the store, but as they hurried into the interior of the mall, the skylight revealed the source of the boom.

A green streak of light, incredibly close to their location, shot across the sky. "Maneuver nine!" Conner shouted, and without warning, he jumped into the air with all the strength he could put into his legs, shattering the skylight as he jumped into the sky. M'gann and Cassie flew up after him, and as soon as M'gann steadied him from falling with her telekinesis, Cassie finished out the maneuver. She grabbed Conner's hand and spun him around her body, throwing him toward the direction of the where the green meteor was about to crash directly into a LexCorp tower.

Conner realized mid-throw that it wasn't a meteor at all, but a girl covered in green energy protecting her from the heat of the atmosphere. Her skin was bright orange, her eyes glowing with emerald intensity and her bright red hair was nearly as long as her body.

Nevertheless, he grabbed at her with his increased speed, and the moment that he latched on, to try to spin her away from the building and slow her down, she twisted and gestured with her fist, hitting him hard with a green bolt of energy and throwing him toward the ground.

He crashed hard into the pavement, nearly destroying two cars as a crater-like line torn in the street. The moment that he could recover, he waved off the pedestrians. "Get away! Far away from here!" He tried to ignore the part of his shirt that the blast had worn away.

In that exact instant, she collided with the building, only slightly slowed down from when Conner grabbed her, and the entire skyscraper looked like it was going to come down. They all realized that the situation was extremely bad now, if it wasn't before, as the sheer force of her landing was causing a skyscraper to topple under its own weight.

_"I'll do what I can to keep the building up! Cassie, hit her hard! M'gann, call for backup now and then help Cassie! Bring the entire Team if you have to! We have no idea how powerful this alien is, but we need to protect the civilians!"_

Conner ran toward the tower that was already beginning to crumble toward the ground, and it would probably take hours before it finally fell completely. He saw the debris start to fall, just as a group of people started trying to evacuate the building.

He moved in one smooth movement, blasting apart the debris with a fist and shoving the pieces far away from any bystanders. He turned to the first person he could. "Ma'am, call the police and tell them that the Justice League has ordered a perimeter of fifteen blocks to be evacuated immediately. Beta-level threat." The woman nodded, immediately reaching for her phone.

"Thanks, Superman!"

"I'm not Superman!" he shouted back, before jumping into the growing inferno to get any stragglers out of there before he was going to try to put his engineering classes to good use and stabilize those areas that could have been damaged. He could already see with his x-ray vision that the south side of the building had been structurally altered, and that in time, that entire side would collapse in on itself.

* * *

 

 

**BLÜDHAVEN  
OCTOBER 6, 13:45 EDT**

His phone started ringing, knocking him out of whatever reverie he had been under. He looked at it, an urgent message from the League network, that a powerful alien crash-landed in the middle of Metropolis, destroying a skyscraper. It took Dick a few seconds to realize that this was connected to his current theory about Wally, and every fiber of his being moved into action.

"Chief, I have to go," he said confidently, standing up and heading toward the door. "Family business. I'll make it up to you!"

"Okay, fine," his boss said. "But don't expect a position when you get back. You're a good kid, Grayson, but your head's not in the game."

"Yes, sir," he said automatically, too hardwired on the idea that this girl could lead him to Wally. The predictions from the astrophysicist could be right, if he could prove that there was a connection to the data in the Arctic with this "meteor" he had predicted.

* * *

 

 

**EL PASO, TEXAS  
OCTOBER 6, 11:47 MST**

**"Beta-level threat in Metropolis! An alien has landed in the middle of the city and has done considerable damage,"**  the Scarab shouted in his head. It was so loud that Jaime shot up from bed, his bare torso cold in the wind from his ceiling fan.

In nearly the same instant, a sudden gust of wind from his window caught his attention and Bart appeared in his black and red uniform, already too awake for his comfort. "Damn, Jaime, are you really still in bed? Get up, get up! We're only two Zetas away from the city! They need all the help they can get."

"Oh, leave me alone, hermano. It's a free school day." Jaime stood up and lazily moved, trying to get some bump in his step. Bart walked into the room, pacing back and forth as Jaime tried to do his morning duties.

"Seriously, you've gotta hurry up and get some clothes on. Just wear the suit in just your boxers! Nobody's going to be paying attention to that."

Jaime turned, keeping his expression unreadable. "Nobody? Are you saying nobody would be interested in this?"

Well, technically, only people with x-ray vision like the Superboy would be able to see your boxers.

Bart just looked away from him. "I'm not saying that, man. Stop teasing and get suited up! You're taking too much time! Lives on the line here!"

Jaime just laughed and let the Scarab cover him with its armor. Bart seemed to sigh with relief the moment it happened, but Jaime just figured it was because he was finally ready. He didn't notice the blush on Bart's face in the mirror.

"Let's get going! We're already going to be slower because you're with me!"

"Yeah, yeah. You keep reminding me of that."

* * *

 

 

**METROPOLIS  
OCTOBER 6, 13:49 EDT**

Cassie was painfully aware of how powerful this alien was, able to counter her flight speed and strength. M'gann's telepathy wasn't working because her mind was too alien, so it was all basically brute force. Which was definitely her kind of fight.

She threw up her bracelets, blocking the balls of light by deflecting them away from her body, exploding on the back of the building behind her. She sped forward, flying directly toward the alien and colliding with her, both hands outstretched like a missile.

She grabbed onto the alien's uniform, trying to gain some leverage, before trying to throw her onto the nearest rooftop below. M'gann probably read her mind enough to see her strategy, and aided her attempt with her telekinesis.

It was strong enough that when the girl landed, she caved in the first two floors before coming to a rest. Cassie started to dive back in, hoping to hit her while she was down, but the girl recovered and ran out the nearest window, flying back around and hitting Wonder Girl with all her might packed into one fist. The throbbing pain of the injury worried her; she had already fought what she affectionately called Robot-Man once this week, and she had not walked away without a scratch.

M'gann yelled out for her, before blocking several strikes by trying to divert them with her mind, levitating quickly to avoid her bolts of light. Cassie cleared her head and tried again, throwing her lasso as adeptly as she could. The second she ensnared the alien, she pulled with all her might into a single kick that would have enough power to send her flying once more.

The girl cried out and fired lasers of green light from her eyes, and Wonder Girl didn't move fast enough to avoid them, hitting her directly in the shoulders and stopping the lasso grab. But Conner must have seen the opportunity, because he jumped from the burning skyscraper and grabbed directly onto the lasso before the fiery alien could get free, using enough force the slam the girl onto the pavement far below them.

Conner landed on the ground, creating a small crater as Cassie dove to join him, M'gann following after. "What are you doing on our planet?!"

The girl didn't respond in any intelligible language. She braced herself for another fight as Conner leaped at her, sending punches and kicks in her direction. The girl expertly dodged them, but the minute that M'gann held onto her with her mind, both Cassie and Conner took the opportunity to send a double-slam to her bare mid-drift. The force was enough to send her flying dozens of yards into a telephone pole.

She screamed in a fit and grabbed that telephone pole, and Cassie launched herself at the enemy. She stiff-armed the pole, the metallic weapon bending from the sheer strength of the goal. Cassie moved quickly, grabbing the girl's hair and slamming her face onto the knee with enough force that it would kill anyone else.

"How'd you like that?!" Cassie yelled, realizing that she liked that far too much. Relishing in the defeat of enemies was not something that Diana condoned in any stretch of the imagination, and it would have worried her had the alien not gotten back up again.

She recovered and responded with an emerald blast of light to her torso. Wonder Girl tried to regain her balance in mid-air, ignoring the smoking wound that would heal by the end of the next hour on her abdomen.

"We don't want to hurt you!" M'gann tried. Cassie could feel through the mental link that she was concentrating on sending positive feelings and emotions to the alien, to try to get it to cooperate. _"It's no use. I don't even know if she has a mind to connect to, or at least one not like ours!"_

The girl suddenly reached up with both fist and fired a barrage of energy blasts, each charged from her hands, and M'gann moved quickly enough, using the debris around her as a telekinetic shield.

Conner joined them, hoping to prepare for the next move.  _"There's nothing else I can do for the building, but the League will be here any minute."_  Cassie always felt stronger with senior members of the Team around. She'd been at this for a long time, but they had tackled things she couldn't even imagine. It was to the point where she revered them as much as she revered the League.

 _"Move on my mark,"_ M'gann explained, sending them images of her plan. She still held out her hands, holding a wall of solid concrete between them and the alien. But the threat moved anyway, flying high over them and holding out her hands, showering them with bolts of energy.

Conner roared like a lion and tried to meet her in the air, but the girl did a somersault and slammed a fist into Conner's left shoulder, so hard there was a very audible crack and a scream. He tried to do something with his other arm, but gravity was finally catching up with him.

M'gann caught him out of the air, and the alien stared at them confidently.

 _"Did she just dislocate your shoulder? A Kryptonian shoulder?"_ Cassie couldn't believe it. The only person who could do that much damage to a Kryptonian was Diana, on a good day. It didn't seem remotely possible.

M'gann didn't say anything, but it was obvious that the kid gloves were off. She rose into the air, eyes glowing a vibrant green.  _"Wonder Girl, relocate his shoulder. I've got this one."_

The fury in her voice was terrifying, and she knew it was serious now. Cassie watched with fiery tenacity as the two aliens met in midair, and M'gann density-shifted at the last second, causing her opponent to glide right through her. M'gann held out a hand and grabbed the girl's neck in mid-air, before flicking her wrist and exerting as much force as she could into her abilities.

It was a nearly instantaneous telekinetic slam, but she hit the slowly-falling skyscraper so hard that an entire section three floors long cracked and broke away.

"You're not going to hurt anyone anymore!" Miss Martian didn't stop, and Cassie watched in complete awe as she sped toward the girl and shifted into some kind of monstrous lizard form with a really long tail, which she wrapped around the alien's torso. She slammed both hands in the girl's temple and her eyes suddenly glowed harder.

Cassie knew what that was, and she met Conner's eyes. He didn't let his face betray him, but Cassie knew he didn't like seeing her using her telepathy on an enemy like that. To be perfectly honest, she didn't like it either, but that was beside the point.

"Cassie... uh, can you-"

"Right! Sorry!" She prepared his arm and tried bending it in the normal range of movement, and the second she met resistance, she concentrated and slammed the flat of her palm on the bottom of his tricep, knocking it back into place. "You're probably going to have to get that checked by someone else, just in case."

He shook his head. "No, it's fine. It'll heal."

The two of them turned back toward the mental battle that was taking place, just as Kid Flash, Nightwing, and Blue Beetle arrived in the same moment. "What's going on?" asked Bart, always quick to ask.

"M'gann took over as soon as the alien dislocated my arm," Conner explained.

"Whoa. She's that strong?" asked Blue, looking up at them. "I suddenly don't want to fight her."

"Maybe you won't have to," Cassie tried, gesturing. "I've never known anyone to withstand M'gann's mind when she really gets down to it." The battle looked like it was still raging inside the alien's mind. "It's funny because she said before that she couldn't actually read her mind, but now that she's trying, she made a connection."

Conner and Dick shared a mental glance. "Blue, Kid, start trying to get people to safety. If this keeps going, we'll have more people on the ground taking care of it."

Blue nodded at Conner's suggestion. "I might can use the Scarab to find places where the building is falling and stabilize it. C'mon." The two of them disappeared into the skyscraper, and Conner stood up and tried to use his arm. He winced in pain, and Cassie felt awful for him.

"Wonder Girl, you go with them. Dick and I will figure out what to do."

Cassie wanted to argue, but the look on Superboy's face was a compelling reason to stay. "Fine. Be safe everyone."

* * *

 

 

**UNKNOWN LOCATION  
OCTOBER 6, 14:12 EDT**

"She's going to get away, isn't she?" the voice asked, already feeling a little bit disappointed.

"Not for long," the woman's face on the monitor said. "I'll have her again soon enough. It's only a matter of time."

"She's battling the League and their pack of juniors right now."

"And she's doing spectacularly, isn't she?"

The voice nodded. "Yes. We don't know if she will win or not. The theories of her strength are proving to be true; however, we don't know for sure if she could stand against a full-blooded Kryptonian. But the White Martian seems to have attacked her mind."

The woman on the monitor peered at them. "This could be a problem in the long term, but right now, it shouldn't be enough to wipe away my programming. Let's see how this plays out."

* * *

 

 

**METROPOLIS  
OCTOBER 6, 14:13 EDT**

The mind of their enemy was the most obscure and blurry mind she had ever come across. It was in more disarray than Kaldur's mind had been, and that was saying something. Had someone messed with her mind, or was she in that much distress?

M'gann couldn't take a solid form within the mind of the alien. Her connection wasn't strong enough, so all she could do was observe and intervene at choice places. The girl looked lost, however, wandering around the barren, fiery wasteland filled with dark smoke and ash. She just wanted to get a sense of who the girl was, maybe figure out her language so that someone could communicate with her in real time.

"Koriand'r...," the girl said, a very weak and gentle voice. It was not at all like the person she saw outside of the mind inside, and that worried her. "H'jarka..." An expression of fear radiated throughout her mind, influencing M'gann as the fires all around them seemed to radiate with yellow light.

When the redhead finally found the source of the intrusion, her entire body lit up with energy. She shouted something incoherent and shot bolt after bolt of energy, fighting back against her control.

"I'm not here to hurt you! I just want to learn why you're here!" She tried to spread good emotions and her good intentions, to make them clear, but M'gann was failing. The girl's mind was too indistinct, too foreign to her to get a good sense of what was going on and how she could approach it.

Without warning, a blast of green energy from her eyes shocked her out of the mind, both in real life and inside her mental state, and she had to retract her probe as she fell away from the girl's body, shifting back to her green-skinned humanoid form.

"M'gann!" Conner shouted, reaching up to grab her.

She could barely keep conscious as the man landed with her in his arms, and everything seemed fuzzy. There was a large burn on her hip where the alien's eyes had hit her in her transformed state, and it was still there after shifting back.

She tried to breathe, to calm down and ignore the horrible pain, but the alien girl was pissed as hell that she had been attacked in her mind. M'gann knew that she needed to do something, but it obviously wasn't meant to be.

Nightwing stepped forward and held out his arms, holding no weapons or ill-intent. M'gann thought he was absolutely nuts, but she realized what he was trying to do.  _"Her name is Koriand'r. She's not a bad person. I think someone's manipulating her."_

Dick gave her a thumbs-up, and the alien didn't seem the least bit deterred by Nightwing's presence. She held up a fist and began to charge energy, an orb of green light growing around it. She was prepared to kill them all.

"Koriand'r!" he said calmly, shocking her initially. It took several seconds for her to suddenly drop her attack, and land. "I don't really know what to say, but we don't want to hurt you. We just want to know what's going on."

M'gann tried to focus on the rest of the encounter, but it was getting hard to concentrate on staying conscious. She had used far too much power in one afternoon, and it was getting harder and harder to stay awake. She was vaguely aware of the news chopper arriving nearby before she finally lost consciousness.

* * *

 

 

**WATCHTOWER  
OCTOBER 6, 19:09 EDT**

Kaldur and Barbara stood side-by-side, deep in thought as they watched the news conference playing on a holographic screen. Black Canary stood off to the side, drinking a bottle of water after a long workout just before that.

A representative of LexCorp was supposed to arrive within the next few minutes to give a press conference about the collapsing skyscraper, and it was obvious why they needed to watch it. All of this had could be disastrous for the League, especially given how it ended. It had already spread across the internet to every major news network and even small town paper, and this was definitely bad news.

"When are you going to address the public?" asked Kaldur, looking at the League's current leader.

The blonde woman nodded lightly confirm, before throwing on her jacket and joining them. "It'll have to be first thing in the morning. We need to quell this before it gets worse, but if I rush it now, it won't work. Any word from Dick?"

"He hasn't left the scene, helping the League members who are trying to do clean-up with what little he can," Batgirl explained. "He's trying to save whatever reputation he has left."

"That's the problem, Barbara," Kaldur said, watching as they finally announced the start of the conference. "His reputation in this particular department has never been good. At least it has never been public like this."

To their shock, the Secretary-General of the UN walked into the room onto the stage, and the entire press audience erupted into mass chaos. "Great. He's going to turn this on us with his own words." Dinah looked positively stressed. "Ollie really owes me a back massage now."

"I don't see how the public hasn't crucified him already," Batgirl said. "When Captain Atom revealed the information to the public about the Reach's plans, Lex Luthor was clearly name-dropped."

"They probably forgave him for it," Kaldur explained. "After all, he was the one with the exact counter to the MFDs. Without him, the earth would be gone. Most people won't see that as coincidental, but we all know differently. We just can't prove it."

The unspoken words between them were telling, but Lex cleared his throat and demanded their attention. "I wish I could stand before you under better circumstances. As I'm sure you're all aware, today marks a new kind of tragedy, but one that has become increasingly familiar during the last year.

"I don't have to begin to tell you how many lives were lost during the Reach invasion. You all should surely know the number by heart." He put a hand over his chest for emphasis, and Kaldur wanted to gag. "But there have been a growing number of extraterrestrial incidences, from the Collector of Worlds to the Reach, to this unidentified threat. I don't personally wish to point fingers because it's impossible to put the blame on any one person, but it stands to reason that we must do something to quell the tide.

Lex cleared his throat and pulled a file from his briefcase. "I want to extend a hand to the governments aligned with the United Nations to pool our intellectual, economic, and militaristic entities together to create a task force. A global initiative to create a response team to deal with alien threats, before they come to our doorstep."

Kaldur frowned. "This is not good."

Someone stood up in the front row, holding a microphone. "Secretary Luthor, isn't this already covered under the UN's charter to establish the Justice League? They, quite frankly as a group, can deal with alien threats far better than any military group on earth."

Black Canary sighed, and Kaldur could feel the tension in the air. This was about to be bad. They could feel it. Kaldur was focused on the file Lex held in his hand, and when he finally opened it to hold up the picture that had swept the globe, he felt completely helpless.

The picture depicted Nightwing kissing a very risquely-dressed alien girl with orange skin, bright red hair, and glowing green eyes. They were standing outside the rubble, and it had been taken in a way that they couldn't see Dick's look of complete shock and surprise at it. For all the world knew, he had enjoyed it.

"This alien girl was the very reason for this tragedy today, that resulted in the loss of sixteen lives and dozens of injured," Lex explained. "As I'm sure most of you are already aware, the man depicted here is Nightwing, the former protégé of Batman. I know his personal life is, quite frankly, none of my business or anyone else's, I find it troubling that someone associated with the Justice League, a former sidekick of one of its founding members, would so fraternize with the enemy."

The room had gone wild at the implications, the room buzzing with questions. Luthor raised a single hand and put away the picture. "I feel like this makes a grander point about the type of people that the League employs. Would Superman or Wonder Woman or even Batman ever do this? No. But I fear that we cannot allow the League to serve the public in the capacity that it has before."

"What is this bastard suggesting?" Batgirl asked, outraged.

"I call for a public summit between the UN and the Justice League," explained Luthor. "I feel that we may need to adjust the legal charter's parameters for their involvement in world affairs. We'll take no further questions."

And with that, the conference was over, and Aqualad was livid. "How can he possibly do this?"

"He can't," Dinah explained, already pacing. "Not without the agreement of the UN and our consent."

"But he has just called us out publicly," Batgirl said. "It's impossible to refuse now, or we'll be seen as weak."

Black Canary shook her head, trying to keep her body calm. "It won't happen for weeks. We'll try to delay it as long as possible. I doubt they will call a special session for this summit, so he'll probably want to have this meeting before the end of the regular session in December."

Barbara sighed. "He'll probably want to give plenty of time for all the talking heads and the public to speculate on how far the UN will go to influence us."

"I hate politics. This is worse than the racial factions in Atlantis," Kaldur added. "We're going to want to get the people talking about all the good things we've done. We need to keep public support on our side. Maybe through Chobert and Lois Lane? Cat Grant even?"

"Hell, wouldn't it be weird if we could get Godfrey on our side?" Batgirl suggested, trying to cut the tension by being funny, but it just wasn't.

Black Canary seemed distracted, and when she finally looked up at them, she frowned. "He's going to out the Team to the public as our black ops squad."

"He'll use Nightwing as the face of it," Batgirl realized. "He's going to be pissed."

"Is there a way to prove that Koriand'r was kissing him to learn the English language?" Kaldur asked.

"Probably not," Batgirl said. "She flew off so fast after that that no one there could keep up. Bart could, but he couldn't track her. For all we know, she's off world now."

"Why would she kiss him then? She probably only did it because she needs to blend in," Aqualad suggested. "M'gann suggested that her mind was a mess, and worried that someone was manipulating her. Maybe she was running from someone when she crashed?"

"I don't think any of it matters, honestly," Black Canary said. "We'd never get her testimony. And even if we did, no one would believe us. We could get M'gann or J'onn up there and dupe the public, but it wouldn't be something the League would agree with. And probably wouldn't work anyway."

"I wouldn't want that. If we do it right, we do it right."

"Then I'd get ready," Dinah said, clapping a hand on Kaldur's shoulder. "This is going to be a PR nightmare that I'm honestly not sure we'll survive."

* * *

 

 

**BLÜDHAVEN  
OCTOBER 6, 21:43 CST**

He ran the numbers once more, his television completely silent to avoid all the talk about him. He had tried to avoid it, but he'd already heard all the things they were saying about him, and it annoyed the hell out of him.

He'd finally returned home almost half an hour ago, but he had not changed out of his uniform. The night wasn't over for him, but he had a different goal in mind. The device on his table had gotten a positive reading on her, and everything lined up with what he'd thought.

The moment he saw the confirmation that the two numbers were within a five one-hundredths of a percentage of each other, he nearly shouted with delight. It could be nothing, but it had to be something.

Question was, why did Koriand'r have the same zeta radiation and magnetic resonance levels surrounding her that he had found in the Arctic after Wally's disappearance?

He had every intention that he was going to find her and ask her, when he wasn't so scared or shocked. Everyone knew to look for her; it wouldn't be hard to find reports of an orange girl wearing a revealing outfit. People were calling her all kinds of names that he didn't agree with, but he wondered if it was even smart for him to seek her out.

It was dangerous and impossible, but he had his computer running a script to database any mention of the alien that attacked on any independent or local news source. The way the media worked, he knew they'd report it the second they had a positive sighting of her, so he wanted to intercept the local levels first.

Dick couldn't even be sure that she could be found. She might have left Earth to pursue some other planet. But he had to have hope that he'd find her and see the connection.


	3. Bang

**STAR CITY  
OCTOBER 10, 21:59 PDT**

The ambiance of the restaurant was quaint and almost comfortable, but he could feel the seedy underbelly, just below the surface. A small bar and grill, just on the edge of the bad spot in town. He did a quick scan of the room with his eyes, adjusting the leather glove that covered the material underneath. He'd had to try to make it casual, but all of his focus was on the one person who didn't seem to have his usual tagalong buddy with him.

The food was disgusting, but he could see why Manheim would choose this restaurant out of all the places in Star City he could. It was probably the best place on this side of town, so it made sense that he would follow in his own circles. Several people seemed to know him, but they were all congregated around him, so Roy didn't worry that he'd somehow be spotted. He had his uniform on under his civvies, so if a confrontation were to happen, it wouldn't be a big deal.

He was hyperaware of everyone that came in, but he didn't even look twice at the blonde girl wearing red and white walk in and look directly toward Manheim. Roy had expected at any minute that someone would come in and recognize him, so when the blonde sat down across from him, he nearly freaked out.

"Hey. So you here to bust that guy?"

Now he was surprised. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"C'mon, Roy, I know what's going on."

Roy nearly reached for the gun hidden under his coat pocket, but refrained when he saw her expression. "Who are you and how do you know my name?" He had the sudden urge to leave, to get as far away from this girl as possible.  _Telepath? Some kind of precog who works for Manheim and could see what I'm going to do?_

The girl smirked, her brown eyes dark in the low light. She crossed her arms and looked positively happy with herself. "I know all about you. My mom still keeps in touch with some of her friends. You're too young to be the clone, so you must be the original Speedy, right?"

He did reach for the gun this time, but the girl raised her arms slightly to mark her surrender. "Hey, hey, I don't mean you any disrespect. My mom was Miss Arrowette; she retired before the League was formed, but she knew Black Canary really well in those first few years. She still goes to some of Dinah and Ollie's parties, and they still talk."

Roy's face didn't change. "I seriously don't know who you are, or who Miss Arrowette is. But I suggest you leave, right now."

"Seriously, Roy, don't worry about me. My name is Cissie King-Jones. I'm on your side. I can help, if you let me."

Roy seriously couldn't believe this, but he was going to ignore any offer of help from whomever this is. "How did you even find me? I've been city-hopping for the last few days. I finally got a lead on something, and he's right over there. You're just making it harder for me to pay attention to him and all the guys with him."

Cissie peered at him. "So what? You're going to wait here until they leave in the wee hours of the morning? I hope you know when you're going to make your move, because I know for a fact that Manheim doesn't leave that bar until he's well drunk. Even if he's been drinking, he'll figure out you've been sitting here this whole time."

He frowned, already growing more and more angry as time went on. "Look, whatever your name is; I'm not going to bother asking you how some kid like you knows Manheim. Scram. Seriously, I don't need your help or your condescending attitude."

"Condescending?" She laughed in disbelief. "You're calling me condescending? You and I are technically the same age. Look at yourself in the mirror, Harper. 'Course, I guess that's harder for you. In the wee hours of the morning, just when you've woken up, does your brain confuse the mirror for Red Arrow? That has to be weird for you."

He slammed his right fist on the table, and it sounded suspiciously like a metal clang against the glass, even through the leather glove. "Get out. Now. Before I get angry."

She stood up and smiled for those watching. "It's good to see you, Roy. I've always wanted to meet you. I've heard good things." He couldn't tell if that was sarcasm and it was driving him crazy. "I just want to let you know that you're being an idiot for not letting me help you. I could've helped you get it out of old Ugly over there, but good luck figuring out where the Q-Juice is going to next." And with that, she was gone. The waitress who had been about to bring a menu for her looked completely confused, but Roy just waved her off.

He sat in the table, trying to keep his head calm.  _This girl's ridiculous. I don't care if her damn mom's Wonder Woman herself; she's just some kid who thinks she's special because her mom used to be a heroine with a terrible name._

He wanted to shoot a text to Artemis to ask if she knew anything about this girl, but he decided against it. The woman had been through too much to let him bother her with his problems; he'd ask Ollie when he felt ready to text him, but he hadn't heard much from GA since the few weeks after Wally's funeral.

Roy took another glance at the too-large man and was surprised to see that his usual partner, the red haired Whisper A'Daire, had showed up in the midst of his conversation with Cissie. He cursed under his breath that he'd missed that detail because of her.

When they started to get up and leave, followed by three other people he could only assume were in the same underground weapons dealer, Intergang, Roy waited a few seconds after they left the door and followed suit.

* * *

**DAKOTA CITY  
OCTOBER 10, 20:18 CST**

Virgil stared at the history homework littered about the room around him and realized that he genuinely missed the few days he'd spent asleep and recovering after the mission in Zandia. At least while he was unconscious, he hadn't known how much homework he'd have when he woke up.

He'd missed a lot while he was recuperating, but when he finally did come to, he found several text messages asking about the infamous kiss seen round the world.

Asami seemed to be the only one actually worried about the status of the League at large, at first, before Virgil reiterated what Kaldur and Black Lightning had told him to them. Tye and Ed had both had nearly the same reaction, wondering how Nightwing had managed to attract an alien babe. Asami, in the group message, had been quick to point out that he did have "Dat Ass?" which just made most of them laugh. Her English had been getting better, but she seemed to catch onto the slang faster than the actual conversations. Although she always seemed unsure if she was using the terms correctly.

Even if his friends had not texted him, Godfrey seemed to be on a perpetual bender against the League, but the kiss was only a launching point. After the recent events of the Reach's invasion, the anchorman had run through a laundry list of grievances he had against them, and it was probably compelling evidence against most of the population.

Virgil had committed a quote from Godfrey to memory, as it had spread throughout the media with its sheer popularity. "As the League continues to operate as it is, on a global scale, the invasion will never end. How many more alien empires are out there, hearing stories of the League's planetary  _and_  interplanetary exports? Will we see more extraterrestrial gladiators, more conquerors bringing the damn Death Star to life at our very doorstep?" Godfrey had showed a clip of Nightwing's kiss and then Blue Beetle had arrived, and the alien girl had fled shortly after that, disappearing into the sky above with a green trail flowing behind her. "You saw it here first, folks. After Nightwing planted a fat one on the lips of the enemy, the Reach's former agent, whom we don't even know we can trust, caused this invader to flee with his very presence. What does this mean if the League chooses to associate itself with someone who was very clearly an enemy to humanity? The Justice League needs to change, or its existence will prove a detriment to the very humanity it purports to protect."

The words were compelling, even to Virgil. Even if he knew the whole story, as well as the background context, he had to wonder how much of an effect the League did have on the presence of aliens on Earth. He tried to view everything as an outsider, but it was difficult to shed his personal stake in the issues.

Eventually he put the complex thought aside and get back to schoolwork he needed to catch up on, but it was difficult to do anything. Frieda had offered to help him study after his skateboarding accident, his cover story, but he'd declined. He had too much on his plate to actively care about school.

Sharon even seemed worried about him, which was not usually the case at all. He wondered if she had been replaced with an alternate universe version of herself, but he didn't want to consider that. Chances are, it could easily be true, and that was scary enough as it is. Stranger things had happened.

Virgil could feel the insomnia weighing him down, but on some level, he was scared to go to sleep. He dreamed night after night about things he wished he could forget. In Zandia, in the Reach ship... he'd been captured and experimented on, or threatened to be experimented on, far too many times. He was lucky to still have any sanity left. He knew he owed a lot of it to all the people he had on his side, and his support group was getting bigger and bigger every week. He just had a lot to learn about the situation and about his powers, so that none of this ever had to happen again.

He wondered what Richie would have come up with, if he were still here. He probably could whip up some kind of strategy or maybe even a design for new type of computer algorithm for an app that can do his homework for him while creating recipes for his favorite desserts as a de-stressor. Richie had been a genius with technology; Virgil had never known that it was because he had an active metagene, and the Reach hadn't realized it either because his super-brain wasn't a flashy ability.

He'd never met Richie until the weeks he'd spent on the Reach ship, but it was a friendship he'd remember for the rest of his life. He had been the only person who gave him hope, especially after Richie somehow used the power of his own brain to turn the machines against the Reach scientists when they tried to probe into his temples. For a few more days, he'd had hope that somehow, Richie would do something that would get them all out of there. Virgil never saw him again.

Someone knocked on the door at the same time that he got a text from Tye. "Virgil, your friends are here," his father explained before opening the door. "You want me to send them up?"

Virgil shook his head, realizing who was there. "Nah, they'll be here any second."

With a flash of yellow light, Ed appeared alongside Asami and Tye. All of them winced when they finally did reappear. "Ed, that still hurts, man. Just less so."

"Sorry."

His family knew about the superheroics, but no one else did. Either way, his father looked at them and just shook his head. "You're going to eventually give me a heart attack, Ed."

"Sorry, Mr. Hawkins," he explained sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. As everyone hugged Virgil to greet him, his father just smirked.

"You're also going to scare the neighbors. Do you really want everyone to know who you are?"

"It's only a matter of time anyway until someone snaps a pic of my face, Dad. I don't wear a mask."

His father just shook his head again and disappeared to make a late dinner for everyone. Virgil was glad for it, but he wasn't sure why they were here. "What brings you guys here?"

"We're going out tonight," Tye explained. "To see the town, enjoy the sights. We need a tour guide, so you're coming with."

Asami looked at him. "Come on, Virgil. You cannot say no."

Virgil realized she was right. He couldn't refuse if he tried. It would be way too much fun to show them all of his old haunts. "It's getting late tonight. Ed, Tye, can you call your folks to make sure it's okay for you to spend the night with us? I'm sure my dad wouldn't mind. I can show you guys everything tomorrow."

They agreed and the plan was set in motion. Virgil was glad to be off-duty for the next couple of days, but eventually, he'd have to report back to the Watchtower. He was looking forward to active duty again; he was starting to get restless.

* * *

**STAR CITY  
OCTOBER 10, 22:31 PDT**

Tailing villains was always annoying. Tailing villains who recognize that you're tailing them was harder. Tailing villains who recognize that you're tailing them and responding with Apokaliptan tech was hardest.

Roy dove to the side and turned in mid-somersault by placing his hand flat on the ground underneath him, and as soon as he landed, he fired several shots into the distance with his akimbo pistols, trying to aim in the high-speed encounter.

The two of them took cover in the alleyway by hiding behind a dumpster, but Roy had a plan for that. He ran toward the nearest wall, jumping toward it and pushing off, flipping in the air in a move that would make Dick proud and firing several shots behind the dumpster.

Whisper was the first to try to move from the now uncovered position, but as Roy recovered by grabbing onto a fire escape, the woman aimed her tech at him and fired several red electrified discs in his direction. Arsenal cursed and dropped from the metallic fire escape before it could electrify him, rolling as soon as he landed and firing once more.

"For someone named Arsenal, you're using low firepower today," Manheim suggested with a laugh. He was holding a new type of weapon he had never come across, a huge cannon-like gun that had an ammo pack attached to his back, almost like you'd expect from a flamethrower. "Why not break out that toy arm of yours?"

Roy wouldn't let himself be baited into doing what they wanted, but he had no idea why they would want that in the first place. What interest did they have in his mechanical arm? He responded with another flurry of shots, but Manheim fired his weapon at the exact same time.

Arsenal's bullets stopped in mid-shot, the air around them shimmering with a disturbance that grew into a solid red and orange orb. The metal dumpster started moving toward the area where he shot, forcing Roy to jump backwards out of the way. He felt a tug from his guns and the arm, just as the fire escape literally was ripped from the wall and sucked toward the orb. As they got closer and closer, the metal objects were smashing themselves together like a trash compacter, turning into bits and pieces.

"Gun creates a powerful magnetic field," explained Whisper, smirking as Arsenal's pistols flew out of his hands and into the field. "Makes your stuff useless, including that arm of yours."

This weapon had all kinds of implications. Roy wondered if that field was used long enough, would the field get strong enough to tear the two buildings around them apart?

"Fancy tech," Arsenal agreed. "Pointless, but fancy."

Whisper pointed her own weapon and fired the more familiar electrified red discs, and he only barely managed to get away before tearing off his glove and preparing to use his arm against them. The pull from the magnetic field wasn't enough to inhibit his movement, so it made Roy wonder how much metal was actually in that thing.

The hand fell away, revealing the laser weapon. If he managed to destroy the weapon, he was sure the field would stop.

In a move that probably surprised even the Intergang members, the man whipped the gun up to block the shot, and the magnetic field responded in the same way, blocking the laser but dispelling the field at the same time. The metal that had gathered around it fell to the ground, and Roy had somehow superheated the air enough with the laser to destroy the field.

"I won't let you fire that thing again!" He aimed once more, but the two Intergang members had already ran toward the other end of the alley, and he couldn't get it good shot. Arsenal continued to run as they headed toward a warehouse near the docks, and he realized it very quickly that they may have been leading him to where he needed to go the whole time.

Whisper fired it again from around the corner, the targeting system attached just in front of her face allowing her to aim quickly. The chest launcher fired, and it hit Roy this time, red electricity flowing through his body. He screamed in pain and dropped to his knees, cursing his luck as the power continued to fry him. He flipped a switch on his arm, raising up and sending a small electrical pulse to divert most of the pain away so he could move again.

Arsenal spun around and destroyed the discs with several shots of his laser, before taking aim at A'Daire's weapon itself. The second the laser hit the holster on her shoulder, there was an electrical flash as power ran through her body, and she nearly dropped to get rid of the pack.

"Serves you right!" He shouted, preparing to fire again from behind cover. They were nearing the warehouse, and Arsenal marked the location in his head to come back and search for any information he could about who was using it. If he could find the Q-Juice and prove it was connected to LexCorp, he'd have a solid lead on something that the Team couldn't find out months ago.

Whisper and Ugly disappeared into the bowels of the large warehouse, and Roy had to play this smart. There were going to be more people inside, and if he wasn't careful, he'd let himself get into a trap. He still had the magnetic weapon to worry about.

He made it to the side of the warehouse, just to the side of the large opening that led inside, and he took a deep breath before finally peeking around the corner. This screamed that it was a trap so hard.

Gunfire responded, and Arsenal's eyes widened with enough surprise that he realized there were at least a half-dozen Intergang cronies, in addition to their two leaders, firing weapons that didn't seem to have originated off-world.

Roy rolled out of the way, the bullets tearing through the vinyl, before realizing that he needed to figure out another way inside. He pointed the mechanical arm at the roof and shot the grapple-cable to the top and let it pull him up to the top, just as two of them responded by running outside and opening fire on him before he could get to the top of the roof.

He pulled himself to safety without getting a scratch, before angling himself and poking his upper body out and aiming the lasers. "Take this, you idiots!" The red laser hit the two men in the upper body, knocking them to the ground. Arsenal had to hope that that had not killed them, but before he could get his bearings and see if there was a way to get to the innards of the warehouse from the roof, a delivery truck suddenly burst from the opening and he realized that he wouldn't get to stop it from this angle. The label for Q-Juice was scrawled across the siding.

He gasped when something suddenly expanded in mid-air and a net of metallic chains suddenly clasped the right front tire. Roy couldn't see where it had come from, but it did its job. The truck careened to the side when it couldn't control its steering, crashing into a brick building on the other side of the street.

Roy cursed under his breath, quickly using the grapple-cable to zip-line to the ground. He checked behind him first, just to ensure that no one from Intergang was behind him. As soon as he got to the van, the driver was already running to get away, and there was no sign of either leader of Intergang. "Damn." He raised the small, pin-sized tranquilizer he held for emergencies and shot it with all the force of a small BB gun. The driver landed on the ground, asleep as it collided with the space of the man's neck. "I'll take care of you later."

Within minutes, he had opened the back and the entire van was empty. There was nothing. He'd been played, and it was almost too late to notice it. A helicopter suddenly took off in the distance, heading toward the water, and Arsenal whipped around and fired one last shot from his laser. It missed wide; there was just too much distance for an accurate shot, but it still pissed him off that he'd left. He caught a glimpse of Whisper A'Daire waving at him, and he kicked the back right tire just for emphasis.

It took him another moment before he walked around to the tire that had been locked by someone else. Attached to the chain was a red arrow with white accents, and it was obviously a kind of trick arrow. He detached it and picked it up to analyze, before realizing that there was a gift tag wrapped to the end of the arrow.  _"This was a decoy. This shipment of Q-Juice goes to Dakota City. You owe me one. From Arrowette and friends."_

He rolled his eyes, glancing at the buildings all around him that could have gotten that shot. There was no one there, but he was sure that Cissie was out there somewhere.  _Damn it. If you knew it was a decoy, why didn't you get the helicopter instead?_

* * *

**DAKOTA CITY  
OCTOBER 11, 17:43 CST**

They'd spent the entire day lounging around, visiting skate parks and actively trying to have a great time visiting shops that no one was really able to afford. Virgil loved getting to spend time with his friends and being out and about. At that point, practically everything was better than being stuck indoors.

The only part of the day that had sucked for most of them was passing by the local STAR Labs, which was not exactly their favorite place in the world. It had been cool for Virgil though, because he'd seen Silas Stone, Rocket's father-in-law, heading inside.

Ed had been laughing for the past fifteen minutes, ignoring everyone in the strip mall near the docks. "You looked so uncomfortable, Asami!"

The rest of them were laughing too, but Asami didn't seem to be as happy about it as they were. Tye hadn't said anything for a long time, just laughing along. "I... don't like that. It doesn't feel normal. Right."

They had passed through a salon because Ed wanted to buy some fancy cologne for his father's birthday, but as they did, an old lady had responded with trying to give Asami a free makeover (although Virgil doubted it would have been free by the time they were finished). The girl had been lucky enough not to have cut her hair, but when she left the dressing room in a bright purple dress that came down to her mid thigh, a matching amethyst necklace and a heels, they had nearly laughed.

Asami refused to buy any of their things, changing back into her usual gear where she felt more at home. They wouldn't have had the money to buy that anyway, although Ed kept suggesting that if he were a worse person, he'd just teleport inside and take everything. "You can't even pick the negative dialogue option on Mass Effect," Tye suggested.

"Fictional people might be sad!" Eduardo shouted before realizing what he'd actually said and rolling his eyes. Everyone just laughed.

They started working on their plan when Tye all of a sudden stopped to look at Asami. "I know you didn't like what you were wearing, but you were as beautiful then as you are now."

Asami grinned brightly, blush spreading to her cheeks. " _Arigato_... I don't think so though. Put me in this any day of the week."

Virgil smiled at the tender moment, and Ed nearly sprayed them with the newly-bought cologne just to stop the awkward. Either way, Virgil remembered a conversation that they had had not days after Wally's funeral. Jaime had asked them why they had not changed their overall look into more comfortable clothes yet, even after they had the opportunity to change. Asami had basically responded that they had been through so much in what they were wearing that it almost felt like home, to them, and they had basically kept pieces of the same outfit sense.

Tye and Asami never left their headbands behind, and Ed basically always had the dark red jacket on over his shirts. Virgil had incorporated part of that same philosophy into his own uniform, and had basically refused when Black Lightning had offered a more standard outfit that looked similar to his own, made of the special Kevlar-enhanced spandex that most superheroes wore. One day, he might change his mind, but if Conner could keep relatively close to civvies, he could too.

"Where to, next?" asked Tye, looking at Virgil for guidance.

"There's a movie theater down by the docks," he finally said. "I've been wanting to see the Amazing Spider-Man 3, and it's still in the theaters there for a discount." It was the same theater that his mom used to take him when he was little; Virgil loved movies and she had instilled that love in him.

"Oh, I haven't had time to see it," Tye said with a grin, agreeing.

Ed crossed his arms. "I don't want to see any of the new Spider-Man movies until he joins the Avengers. What's Marvel waiting for?"

"But they can't be in the same movie," explained Asami. "They are owned by different, um, studios." She looked to Tye for confirmation that was the right word, and he nodded. "Spider-Man is Sony, Marvel has the Avengers, and Fox has both X-Men and the Fantastic Four."

Static nodded. "She's right. Too many annoying contracting issues to get it to work. Although I'd love to see Spider-Man and Iron Man fight."

"RDJ would rip Andrew Garfield in half and burn the pieces with his repulsors," Ed said with derision. "No contest."

"No way. If Spider-Man could sneak up on him without the armor, there wouldn't even be a fight."

Asami looked at the three boys as they started arguing, and eventually she just rolled her eyes and moved on. "Are we going to the movie or not?"

* * *

**UNKNOWN LOCATION  
OCTOBER 11, 18:27 CST**

Savage looked up from the monitor, which was currently detailing everything they knew about their operatives' positions, especially in relation to the known positions of the Justice League and the Team. Their forces were spread thin, and had been moving in secret lately. He tapped the screen, and it zoomed in on the map at Dakota City. He did a quick count of any active Leaguers nearby, but there were none in the city itself. The closest tagged hero was the original Roy Harper, and they basically had permanent surveillance on him.

"Is Arsenal going to be a problem for us?" asked the woman to his right. He looked up to admire the beauty of Bialya's leader, Queen Bee, the crown on her head making her look regal.

Savage wasn't convinced that the young boy was ever a threat; Luthor had ensured that, based on all of their predictive models. "I'm more concerned about the person who intervened for him last night. Manheim and A'Daire were lucky to have gotten away unscathed."

"Any ideas who it could be?" asked Queen Bee. Vandal Savage shook his head; he hated not knowing something.

"My closest guess would have to be Red Arrow, but you and I both know he's out of the game," explained Savage. "Someone's using red trick arrows that don't match any archers on our records."

Queen Bee tapped the screen to show a close-up picture of the chained tire, an arrow attached to the complex network of chains. "Does it really matter? This is far too primitive to actually pose a threat."

"You're right. This archer is simply an unknown figure, but I'm sure we will learn more about him or her soon enough."

They moved back to the map of Dakota City. "This is where we've targeted the shipment."

Savage nodded at Bee's statement. "Blood thought it would work very well given the large urban population with all the traits we'd need to get it done."

Queen Bee scoffed at the mention of Brother Blood. Savage simply shook his head. "The man has vision. The kind of vision that we need in our ranks, to complete our agenda."

She didn't argue with him any further, but she knew she'd get a chance to make her opinion on the matter known. Savage could see right through her.

"It won't take them long to analyze Blood's weapon," Bee stated. "They'll find the element inside."

"And?" asked Savage, challenging her to figure out how that would be a bad outcome. "Even if they do, they'll never master it. It is assured to be impossible to understand-"

"The Brain did," the dark-skinned woman retorted. "If pressed, Batman or the Atom could learn its secrets. Stranger things have happened, Vandal, and I'm starting to feel concern."

This time, he scoffed at her words. "Even if they figured it out, what are the odds they'd learn how to do something with it? The element has been the subject of research from the Brain and Brother Blood for years, and only now is Blood beginning to unleash its properties in a useful way. Perhaps if the Brain were free to work, we could have harnessed it faster and more effectively than even now."

It took a long moment for Queen Bee to sigh. "You're right. I just can't help but feel agitated and almost worried. We are growing closer and closer to the planned endgame. If we start to fail now, everything that we've worked for will be lost."

Savage merely grinned. "Oh, come on. You know we always have a backup plan."

* * *

**DAKOTA CITY  
OCTOBER 12, 00:20 CST**

"That movie was fantastic," Ed said, amazed. "Andrew Garfield is a brilliant actor. Can't wait until they bring in Miles Morales for number four!"

"I knew you'd like it," Virgil said, laughing. "If you'd have just gotten that stick out of your ass sooner, you'd have seen the other two movies as well. Sinister Six comes out in the spring, and Venom in the fall. That end credits scene was incredible!"

"Not as good as the Iron Man 3 one," Asami said with a thoughtful smirk. "That one was funny."

They continued to talk about the movie for a bit longer, as Virgil them through the shortcut to the other end of town, by crossing the bridge near the docks. The lake stretched out for miles on their left, and the entire scene was filled with barely any signs of life.

"Not going to lie, it's a little bit creepy," Virgil said, trying not to notice and get them home faster. He was tempted to bring out his disc and use his powers to travel, but they'd get there soon enough. There were a few people around, surprisingly enough.

But everything changed the moment that he heard the first sound of gunfire, before screams and shouting tore through the night. "What the hell's going on?" Tye screamed as the four of them ran toward the sound, which was probably one of the stupidest decisions they'd made in a long time.

A full on gang war had erupted in the middle of the docks area, several groups of people firing on each other and beating each other up with crowbars and baseball bats. Virgil knew that Dakota City's gang problem was bad, but it had never erupted to this kind of extreme.

Ed teleported in a blast of yellow light onto a truck marked with the label for Q-Juice, before vanishing again in time to slam his board into the back of a well-built man and knocking him down before he could use the rifle he carried on a group of unsuspecting men. He vanished again, in time to see Asami chi-jump and tackle into a woman about to unleash her akimbo pistols.

"Tye! Maybe you'll scare 'em off!" Virgil shouted, generating electricity.

The Native American shook his head, hiding behind him. "I can't do it. I'm out of practice!" Both Virgil and Tye leaped out of the way of a barrage of bullet-fire, the projectiles responding by destroying several crates behind them. "I can't get focus!"

Asami destroyed the aluminum bat of one of the thugs with pulsations of her inner chi, before slamming a powered fist into his stomach and sending him flying. Virgil couldn't help but admire the use of her powers, because they were so versatile. Asami chi-jumped to pick up a wounded man and carry hmi out of the area, just as Ed started to do the same thing while attacking at the same time. He was in so many places at once, it wasn't even funny.

"I got the guns!" Static reached into the deepest pit of his powers and expelled electricity, aiming for every single gun he could see in the large group of gangs. Virgil hated guns; he couldn't stand them. He channeled that rage into his powers, feeling them getting stronger, and within seconds, he had pulled all the weapons from their hands and packed them into a very large orb floating in the sky, far out of their reach. "Tye, try again!"

The Longshadow form suddenly appeared, freaking everyone out. As everyone started to run from the yellow behemoth, Static didn't see it coming. Tye barely managed to move his battle avatar's hands in front of his face in time to block the RPG round, the explosion sending him falling backwards.

Ed saw it first, teleporting up to the rooftop where the launcher had fired, and Asami followed him as quickly as she could. But Static was helpless when another explosion went off, this time destroying the delivery truck.

The explosion suddenly grew strong, burning with an intense yellow blaze, and a strong, unique smell hit him just before the force of the explosions knocked him off of his feet.

He struggled to recover, the guns having fallen out of his grasp. He peeked his head up, a yellow gaseous layer of mist spreading throughout the docks and causing the various gang members to cough for their lives as they tried to run away.

Static managed to reach his feet, sending his electrified disc under his feet and running to where he saw Ed and Asami on the roof. Red electricity spread through the air, and Static rode his disc up the tin wall of the roof before intercepting the red electric discs with only the power of his own body.

Ed and Asami had been hit by the red-haired woman's device, and Ed was out cold with Asami struggling to retain her consciousness. The woman was standing on a helicopter overlooking the docks, and the wind was keeping the smoke away from them. The man to her right had been the one who had fired the rocket launcher, destroying the Q-Juice shipment. Tye was barely starting to get up down below, without his avatar form, and Virgil knew it was up to him.

"What did you do any of that for? Who are you?"

The man just rolled his eyes, preparing another grenade. "Does it really matter who I am? I'm sure your Team knows exactly who I am, assuming that you survive to ask them. Convert to the new, supreme god, for all of you are about to die!"

The man aimed the RPG, but Static was not about to let that happen. He created a ball of electricity within his hands, before firing it at the helicopter and in the direct path of the grenade. It kept its shape, spraying energy arcs all around, before finally colliding with the projectile bomb and forcing it to explode in mid-air. Tye moved in the next moment and tried to swat it out of the air with the fist of his huge astral form, but a shot from the red-haired woman's weapon was enough to stun him with red lightning. "You're hilarious if you actually thought that would work. But our work here is done!"

The helicopter disappeared into the night sky, and despite Static's best efforts, he couldn't send a strong enough blast in their direction from this far away.

"Virgil! Tye!" Asami shouted, and they all turned back around to realize that Ed was unconscious. A stray bullet had struck his shoulder, going all the way through, and potentially piercing a lung. Blood was all around his shirt, and Asami was trying to put pressure on it.

"Ed!" Virgil shouted, picking him up and placing him on his back, on the other side of his disc. He held onto him tight. "Nearest hospital is on Thirty-Eighth!" He tried to focus on the iron in Ed's blood, to keep him alive by trying to force the blood to stay put, but he had no idea if that would even do anything. He'd never tried it before.

He sped off toward the hospital, praying that he'd make it in time. Asami and Ed were following, Asami carrying Tye with her chi-jumps making it significantly faster. "C'mon, Ed, stay alive!"

* * *

**DAKOTA CITY  
OCTOBER 12, 1:18 CST**

Arsenal was speechless and angry. If he'd have arrived just a few minutes sooner, he could have avoided this terrible outcome. He was trying really hard not to think about Eduardo lying in a hospital bed, on life support, with no one knowing if he would live or die. Surgeons were there, trying to patch his lungs back together, and everything was just too much for him to handle it.

He hadn't known them very long, but he felt a strong connection to them just the same. He'd already called Ed's father to tell him about what had happened, and they had coordinated temporary Zeta access so he could get there faster, in this special circumstance.

The man was pacing back and forth, his entire body convulsing with tremors of immense grief. Virgil was trying to console him, to help him feel better, but it wasn't working.

Arsenal knew that within the hour, more members of the Team would show up to support them. He hated that Zatanna and Doctor Fate were away on a mission together for a change, unable to help with their magic. Everyone was basically beside themselves with fear, and Arsenal tried to think of basically anything else.

Why had Intergang been involved with a shipment of Q-Juice in the first place? They were involved with Apokaliptan technology, specifically the kind that could be used as a weapon, so why would they be interested in what Roy had been researching as the new codename for the Reach drink? Arsenal had run into the others on their way to save Ed's life, but he knew he wanted to get back out there and survey the damage and try to figure out what happened.

He sat with Tye and Asami who seemed a little too busy trying to comfort each other to talk to him. He was okay with that, glad that they had someone. It seemed like hours passed and the hospital was crammed full of people who had been involved with the gang war. Probably every hospital in the city was full, and would only get worse. Most were not in serious danger, from what he could tell, but all were in bad condition. It was like a damn war had taken place after that explosion, and everything was wrong.

He was vaguely aware of someone walking towards him and he looked up to see the blonde girl who had been a thorn in his side the night before. It was obvious to him now that she had the same build as an archer, dressed in the same red hoodie she'd worn in the restaurant. It was civvies though, that much he could tell.

"Hey, come with me."

He stood up and followed her, waving to the headband-wearing couple that it was okay. "I really don't have time to talk to you. My friend's dying, in case you couldn't tell. Leave, Cissie."

She didn't say argue. "I'm sorry about that. I truly hope he gets better." The girl started to walk off, but he suddenly realized that she had to have sought him out for a reason, and he had no idea what that was. "Fine. Tell me what you know about Intergang, about Manheim. What was he up to tonight?"

The blonde stopped but didn't turn around to face him. "All that will come in time. My friends will want to meet you soon. I'll send you another message. I shouldn't have bothered you while your friend was in trouble. I wish there was a way I could help."

He sat there and watched her leave, and he really couldn't bother with her right now. As he rounded the corner to head back to the hallway outside the operating room, he saw the look of joyous relief on Dorado Sr.

"What's going on?"

Asami looked up at him. "Ed's in a coma, but the surgery went okay."

"How long until he wakes up?" Their faces were grim, but no one knew.


End file.
